Airline new route selection based on interval type-2 fuzzy MCDM: AÂ case study of new route between Turkey- North American region destinations

Conditions of global competition in the aviation sector force airlines to be internationally-minded instead of competing only in their domestic markets. Thus, airlines are interested in potential international markets instead of domestic markets. This study focuses on the process of new route selection, which has a high impact on the revenue and passenger numbers of airlines. An airline company in Turkey plans to launch a new route at an airport in the North American region. Any suboptimal decision has a huge effect on the outcomes of airlines in the market. Therefore, making an optimal decision, which is compatible with the airline company's goal, is highly important. In this study, a decision analysis is applied in terms of the selection of a new route from five different destinations by using an interval type-2 fuzzy TOPSIS method. A multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method is used in order to identify the aspects of the new route's feasibility. Finally, a real case study is shown to verify the proposed method and to demonstrate its practicality and feasibility. The results show that the MCDM approach is a useful tool for decision-makers in terms of selecting potential airports for route analysis.